Downloaded files on desktop shifting icons

Maybe it can give you an idea for a little April Fools joke If unchecking the Auto-arrange icons option didn't work and the icons keep moving, it could be due to several other possibilities:. Some programs such as computer games in particular change the screen resolution when you run them.

When it happens, Windows automatically re-arranges the desktop icons to fit the new screen size. When you exit the game, the screen resolution may change back, but the icons have already been re-arranged. Sound familiar? If you've noticed that the icons change their positions after you run a particular program, this might be the case.

What is the solution? Not to run that program :- or look through its settings, maybe there is an option to adjust the screen resolution it uses. Contact the company that makes the offending program, and they might be able to help.

If only some icons are moving after you save changes to the documents they represent, it could be because the program that saves the changes actually recreates a new document from scratch, and it makes Windows to find a new position for the icon rather than reuse the old one. As suggested in the comments below, a solution to such a problem is not to save documents themselves on the desktop.

Instead, save them to some other folder, such as Documents, and create shortcuts to the documents on the Desktop. This way, when you save the document, the shortcut will not be changed, and it should keep its position on the desktop. If Windows keeps rearranging the icons even after you've tried the previous suggestions, another possibility is that you have a faulty video card or an outdated driver for the video card.

You see, if the video card or its driver do not behave well, they may change the resolution spontaneously, and when the resolution changes, it causes Windows to rearrange the icons on the desktop, too. If this is the case, first of all check for updates to your video card driver, and install a new version, if available. Keep in mind that you may need to search the web site of the company that manufactured your video card for the latest driver for your specific model. If updating the driver does not solve the problem, try tweaking the video card settings, such as changing its resolution or the display mode.

Good luck! Finally, if Windows keeps rearranging the desktop icons no matter what you try, you may want to install our software Icon Shepherd. It memorizes the positions of the desktop icons and keeps track of them when you move the icons around, creating snapshots of the icons after each change. This was annoying me to no ends, ever since Win10 started to behave in that odd that way.

But the empty folder suggestion is what cured it. Many thanks for sharing this pain reliefer. The fact that all this effort is just expected to be applied to fix what breaks in updates is ridiculous imo. I have a 3 monitor setup, and the same thing usually happens if one of the monitors gets disabled while logged into Windows. For instance, my monitor lineup from left to right goes 1,3,2,4 with 4 being my Surround Receiver.

I disabled 2 once by accident and all those icons moved to 3, and my desktop icons moved from 3 to 4 which isn't a display. When I re-enabled 2, only the desktop icons moved from 4 to So I manually moved everything back. When I booted up again the following day, the icons had moved back. So I moved them again and restated. On reboot, and log in, they moved back once again I restarted. When I logged in, the issue was fixed. I think the cache gets corrupt. Doing what I did forced it to rebuild it I'm guessing.

When the Auto-arrange was on, five icons out of many moved from the primary screen to the secondary. It happened every time I turned the computer on.

Moving them back manually, they stayed on the primary until I turned the computer off. When I turned the computer on again, the icons moved automatically to the secondary screen. This fixed the problem:. Move the icons back to the primary manually. Turn off the Auto-arrange. Turn on the Auto-arrange.

The icons did not move any more. Not sure if this has been resolved yet, because I tried just about every solution proposed here without success. The problem was also present using a display port to HDMI converter, so as soon as I connected a second display some of the Icons moved onto the second monitor. Ok so it was easy switching to the second display and selecting the icons and dragging them back to the first monitor, but if the desktop was refreshed they all moved back to display 2.

When I saw this post I knew at once it held most of the answer I was looking for, but I tried following it and it didn't seem to address the issue until I started fooling around and testing further. Single Left Click on the desktop, Ctrl-A, on the screen where most of your icons are at Click and drag the bottom-left most desktop shortcut and drag it overtop the last or bottom-right most shortcut in the rightmost column - you will see a horizontal I beam appear over that shortcut, release the left click.

This forces shortcuts that may have been dragged to other screens inadvertently to reorganize and snap back, Auto Arranging and Aligning to grid on the primary monitor. For me, I was able to reproduce and repeat the results. For many others of you that read this and want to criticize my first post, I have been using a computer a while, and you might want to give this a shot, pretty sure it works.

Cause the auto arange icons and all the other suggestion did not work for me and my main display never switched to a different one. Thanks for this - it's the only solution that worked without downloading new software. Office Office Exchange Server.

Not an IT pro? Resources for IT Professionals. Sign in. United States English. Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums. Asked by:. Archived Forums. Windows 10 General. Sign in to vote. I've tried multiple fixes without success: 1.

Unplugging and plugging the monitor back in. Icons always default to the secondary monitor 2. Icons will move to the secondary monitor upon boot or any screen refresh 3.

Monday, August 21, AM. Good luck Robert Aldwinckle Monday, August 21, PM. Hi, According to your description, I find that some people have the similar issue. Tuesday, August 22, AM. Saturday, January 27, PM. Are you doing the Auto-Arrange step while there is one monitor? Robert Aldwinckle Sunday, January 28, AM. I have the exact same issue.

Were you able to find a solution? It just suddenly started 2 days ago. Friday, February 9, AM. I can't control what goes on which monitor. If anyone has any advice, that would be great. Friday, February 9, PM. That's normal. The dragging of the icons in the Settings page is just to facilitate pointer movement to match the physical arrangement of the monitors. I scanned my system and did not find any infections luckily.

But that still leaves me with this problem. I have tried everything I can find. Any ideas. I had a similar issue recently and tried all the online solutions I could find. I have been using DesktopOK to restore the icons. I have not seen my particular solution mentioned anywhere. Restoring back to the original size created the problem.

What happened was one of the desktop. I have "hide protected system files" Unchecked so the desktop. The fix was to reduce the Icon size, find and move the desktop. The problem went away after moving the desktop. I suspect windows did not like the coincident icons and hence rearranged them on reboot. Domadea, I had this problem for years and years. Not only on Win 10 but Win 7 also. Here's the only thing you'll ever need.

And it's a free software. If you have a touch screen, the computer may have two screen modes: Desktop Mode and Tablet Mode. If your Windows 10 computer is in Tablet mode, the desktop icons may not be shown properly. You can click Start and Settings to open Windows 10 settings.

Click System to open system settings window, and select Tablet mode in the left panel. Make sure the status of Table mode is Off , to turn off tablet mode. SFC System File Checker is a Windows built-in command line tool mainly designed for helping users to scan and repair corrupted system files. If the Windows 10 icons missing issue is caused by system corruption, you can try SFC Scannow to show desktop Windows Open Windows Command Prompt. You can press Windows logo and R keys on the keyboard at the same time.

Then type cmd in the box, and hit Enter. When a window pops up asking you if you want to run it as Administrator, click Yes. Wait patiently to let the SFC Scan process finish. If you Windows 10 desktop icons are disappeared, some of files you stored in computer may also get lost. You can use this tool to recover lost data from almost any data loss situations, incl. Free Download.